MEDIA

News Outlets' Post-Trump Hangover

If you haven’t felt the itch to check Twitter 24/7, skim your preferred news site, or keep cable news humming in the background since President Trump left office, join the club. A few months into the new Biden administration, news consumption has significantly declined, according to the Washington Post. 

• TV: CNN lost almost half of its primetime viewership in the key 25–54 demographic in the period between President Biden's inauguration and March 15. 
• Online: From January to February, unique visitors to the NYT's website dropped 17%, while the Washington Post clocked in a 26% decline over the period, per audience tracking firm ComScore.

Trump’s dramatic time in office was like San Francisco in 1849 for media companies that covered politics. The NYT started his presidency with 3 million paying subscribers and ended it with 7.5 million. CNN had its best year ever in 2020 and drew more viewers aged 25–54 than Fox for the first time in 19 years in Q4. Throw in the onset of a global pandemic and door-busting subscription deals, and news companies were inundated with traffic. 

But now, strategies are shifting 

• The NYT warned last November that its subscriber gains would start to slow once No. 45 left office. Now, it’s investing more resources into its Games and Cooking divisions in order to push beyond news content into more anchovy content.   
• The Washington Post is going the opposite route. It's bringing on 150 new employees in the outlet's biggest hiring spree ever, pushing its newsroom to well over 1,000. It plans to use the extra bodies to expand reporting on issues of race and international news.  

Bottom line: With DC going from House of Cards to C-SPAN 2, the focus is shifting from filibusters to stonks. Politics consumption on major new sites dropped 28% from January to February, according to analytics company SimilarWeb, but interest in business and finance news only slightly declined over the same period.

FINANCE

Leon Black Steps Down

Leon Black, cofounder of investment juggernaut Apollo Global Management, has stepped down as chairman following an independent investigation into his ties with Jeffrey Epstein. 

What happened: Over a five-year period, Black paid Epstein $158 million for advisory services, including tax and estate planning. While Black was cleared of wrongdoing, the optics around his relationship with an accused sex trafficker didn't look...great. 

• Black was already stepping down as CEO, and his replacement and fellow cofounder, Marc Rowan, has assumed the position early. Former SEC head Jay Clayton replaces Black as non-executive chairman. 

For Black, it's more of a "cya l8r." With an 18% stake, he's still Apollo's largest shareholder and plans to return to the company.

What's Apollo? 

Just one of Wall Street's most successful private equity firms, with $455 billion in assets.

Like Berkshire Hathaway in 2008, Apollo recently cemented its reputation as "responder of last resort," the FT reports. The firm has helped companies including Hertz, United, and Expedia weather pandemic-era financial troubles.

Zoom out: This leadership shuffle comes during a larger transition as Apollo acquires insurance giant Athene Holding. The deal will give Apollo even more $$$ to pour into investments. 

WEALTH

If You Can Dodge a Wrench, You Can Dodge Taxes

The wealthiest 1% of US households fail to disclose 21% of their income, according to a new study by IRS researchers and economists.

What's going on: Some types of income, like wages, are automatically reported to the IRS. But other income streams can slip by the agency's auditors with "sophisticated" strategies including...

• Offshore accounts, which helped the top 1% evade an estimated $15 billion in taxes. 
• Pass-through businesses, like LLCs and partnerships, that are popular with family firms, investment funds, and real estate businesses. They're perfectly legal, but since their income isn't taxed at the corporate rate, it’s easier to hide, and some politicians want to raise taxes on those companies.

Enforcement also isn't what it used to be. Audit rates have slipped over the last decade as the IRS lost 15,000 staffers. The agency's commissioner, Charles Rettig, asked Congress for more funds, arguing every $1 spent on enforcement returns $5–$7.

Zoom out: Collecting unpaid income taxes from the 1% could bring $175 billion into the Treasury annually, the study concludes.

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GRAB BAG

Key Performance Indicators

Stat: Almost half (49%) of American adults feel uneasy about resuming in-person interactions after the pandemic winds down, according to a new survey from the American Psychological Association.

Quote: "The basic property and task for a central bank and central-bank currency is to provide stability in the value of money and in the system, and that is not done by bitcoin."

Norway's central bank governor told Bloomberg that he'd never consider swapping out the country's currency for bitcoin. Apparently it was International Central Bankers Bashing Bitcoin Day yesterday, because Fed Chair Jerome Powell also said crypto is "not really useful as a store of value."

Read: Meet the 61-year-old Dutch guy behind those crazy wellness routines adopted by athletes and entrepreneurs. (WSJ)

MARKETING

Donut Fear, Krispy Kreme Is Here

While Krispy Kreme probably isn't the first company you think of when you read the words "public health," the donut maker is putting its hydrogenated soybean oil to good use with a creative promo: Anyone who shows a vaccine card at a participating Krispy Kreme gets a free glazed donut.

The "best" part? The offer is valid until the end of 2021, so a vaccinated person could theoretically obtain a free glazed donut every day for the next 284 days. 

Vaccine promos are everywhere

• A brewery in Cleveland is offering 10-cent beers to the first 2,021 people who show proof of vaccination through its "Beer and the Shot" promo. 
• Uber and Lyft have been providing free and discounted rides to and from vaccine sites.
• A luxury hotel in Dubai is offering 25% discounts to fully vaccinated UAE residents. 

Bottom line: Brands have struggled to strike the right tone throughout the pandemic. But supporting the vaccine rollout so everyone can return to normal life is like saying you love fluffy corgis—not particularly controversial.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Microsoft is in talks to acquire the messaging platform Discord for more than $10 billion, per Bloomberg.
• Microsoft will also start bringing workers into its Seattle-area HQ on March 29.
• President Biden’s economic advisers will present him with a plan to spend up to $3 trillion on new initiatives, per the NYT. 
• Researchers from the cybersecurity group Citizen Lab found that TikTok's algorithm provided no immediate national security threat. 
• Goldman Sachs's CEO David Solomon said the company is taking steps to address the mental health of junior bankers after a survey revealed a severe work-life imbalance.
• New pasta just dropped.

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Everyone loves a good doc. Here are the top 10 documentaries of 2021, from Tiger Woods to Billie Eilish.

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GAMES

Guess the Mascot

This cute bulldog is the mascot for which university?  

Hint: They are currently in the Sweet 16 for the men’s college basketball tournament. 

ANSWER

Gonzaga